Tomorrow I fly to Italy to make my way over to EuroPython 2011 in Florence. I am tremendously looking forward to it! With 5 days of talks and 2 days of sprints (though probably only one for me) this will be the longest conference I've ever attended, we'll see how I do :-)
The conference looks wonderfully organised, I've been really impressed with everything the all volunteers staff has already accomplished to make the event as enjoyable as possible for everyone (the scheduling with estimated attendance vs. room size, the data SIM, the cultural events...). Can't wait!
Some of the talks I look forward to are...
- many of the talks on scalability, since that's part of my job now (woohoo to Python development \o/) notably David Cramer's Building Scalable Web Apps and Simon Willison's Challenges in developing a large Django site
- some of the talks on intermediate/advanced Python concepts that I'm concerned I may have missed, like Python tips, tricks and idioms and maybe/hopefully Python 103 (this one's conflicting with the Pitfalls of Continuous Deployment talk, it's gonna be tough to choose only one to attend...)
- I cannot wait for Brian Fitzpatrick's Myth of the Genius Programmer keynote :D :D
- If I survive this far (one of the last talks of the last day!) I'm also really curious about the London Python Code dojo, what they're doing and whether that's something to try and replicate in Dublin
There are of course many-many-many more talks I highlighted on my schedule, I expect these to be my conference highlights. From past experience though I know I'll be amazed at plenty more!
Now of course, this may be compromised if I fail to hear my alarm clock at 3:45 tomorrow morning :O